“Before now, I used to think death was the
nothing every other thing returns to,
but it’s safer, I suppose, to learn by practice.”

“When he comes over to place the white porcelain on my table he adds a sentence in French. I realise too slowly that he’s said something more than “Here you go” or “Enjoy,” and miss his meaning. I think he feels sorry for me and has offered the cup for free. I can’t be sure, but speaking feels like an acutely vulnerable act.”

“This dearth of editorial talent on the continent often results in the mistranslation of sensibility, or subjectivity when foreign editors take on African books. We conceived this fellowship in response to that. We conceived of this fellowship in response to this.”

“In creating this fellowship, we asked ourselves what tradition we could follow to indicate the continuation of a lineage—someone whose work, though not much talked about, changed the trajectory and development of literature on the continent—and we immediately thought of the great Rajat Neogy, who founded Transition when he was just 22”

“Dear God,
Won’t you whisper to the man on the pulpit
that old things have passed away?”